Forum Help

If you want to ask about changing your username, have login problems, have password problems or a technical issue please email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com

Posting help:

If you want to ask why a word can't be typed, your signature's been changed, or a post has been deleted see the Forum Rules. If you don't find the answer you can ask forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com though due to volumes we can't guarantee replies.

Can anybody help me please? I have a Lenovo desktop PC which is 6 months old and is running Windows 10 Home edition. For several weeks now, the computer keeps freezing, with the light next to the power button usually off, but sometimes on. It sometimes goes for a day or two without freezing, while at other times, it freezes 2 or 3 times a day and the only way I can reset it is by keeping my finger on the power button to shut it down and then reboot. I have the PC on at all times as I'm backing up files to my cloud backup, so the crashes make it all the more irritating. HYas anyone else experienced this or have any ideas of how to stop it from happening, so my computer can run normally please? Any help greatly appreciated as it's driving me nutty!

Because I can't really afford to be without a computer for however many weeks or do yet another dreaded factory reset (which I did on my last PC several times before abandoning it), so I'd prefer to try and fix the problem if at all possible.

Can anybody help me please? I have a Lenovo desktop PC which is 6 months old and is running Windows 10 Home edition. For several weeks now, the computer keeps freezing, with the light next to the power button usually off, but sometimes on. It sometimes goes for a day or two without freezing, while at other times, it freezes 2 or 3 times a day and the only way I can reset it is by keeping my finger on the power button to shut it down and then reboot. I have the PC on at all times as I'm backing up files to my cloud backup, so the crashes make it all the more irritating. HYas anyone else experienced this or have any ideas of how to stop it from happening, so my computer can run normally please? Any help greatly appreciated as it's driving me nutty!

Windows may been set to turn off power of certain items after a time or a setting in power, for example it is possible to say that power saving can turn off a screen or a network card, it is no big deal for a screen but for a network card it can be like pulling rug from under you.

Have you made any changes to the power settings? If so set them back to default.

Win10 has hybrid shutdown, I think you have to hold left shift than fully shut down or else it goes hybrid (a kind of sleep mode).

To be a problem you can return it for you have to be able to reproduce it, even then it could be power settings in BIOS (F2/F10) at start up.

You have to change one thing at a time and then monitor to see if still occurs, of you do more than one thing at a time you do not know what actually fixed it. Alternatively you turn all power related things off and put them back one at a time, again keeping logs.

The power settings in Win10 have to be compatible with those in Bios, so you might turn off any related settings in BIOS, then disable any power settings in windows that turn off devices after a certain period of inactivity. Note that even if you are uploading to cloud, if you do not touch keyboard or mouse it may consider you are being inactive.

Detail below say how to turn off Hybrid.

Then a case of adding things back in 1 at a time, seeing if problem still occurs, try to note what you were doing, how long it had been.

Doing a clean install is overkill and you do not figure out what cause it, there are options in all settings to restore to default.

“

Microsoft has introduced the new method of shutdown, called Hybrid Shutdown. This feature is enabled by default, and it decreases the PC!!!8217;s shutdown time. Hybrid Shutdown decreases the shutdown time by hibernating the kernel session, instead of completely closing it. When the PC is powered on again, the kernel session is revoked from the hibernation, so it decreases the booting time as well.
But besides increasing the performance, Hybrid Shutdown feature may also cause some errors or even prevent Windows from shutting down completely. When this happens, many computers freeze or hang when you try to shut them down, and reason for this is that Hybrid Shutdown is enabled by default. So, logically, to solve this issue, you!!!8217;ll need to disable this feature. When you disable it, the kernel session won!!!8217;t be hibernated on shutdown anymore, but it will be completely closed. This might increase the shutting time of your PC, but the problem will definitely be solved.

Disable Hybrid Shutdown Manually

Follow these steps to manually disabled Hybrid Shutdown feature.

1- Go to Search, type power options and click on Power Options from search results

2- On the left side of the window click on Choose what the power button does

3- If needed, click on Change settings that are currently unavailable, under Define power buttons and turn on password protection

Please be nice to all MoneySavers. That’s the forum motto. Remember, the prime aim is to help provide info and resources. If you don’t like someone, their situation, their question or feel they’re intruding on ‘your board’ then please bite the bullet and think of the bigger issue.

Looks like you're on your way to fixing, but I would just say try booting up in 'safe mode' and see how it performs. It wouldn't be nice to use it in that state, but if it continued working, that might help you diagnose the issue a little more.

Also, only IMO but cloud backups are perfectly fine for residential / home users. No doubt if I were involved in Enterprise data, I would be completely obsessed with being in control.

Last edited by bikerchris; 19-03-2017 at 11:30 AM.
Reason: typo

If someone is worth thanking - click on the 'Thanks' button on their response. It's just a nice thing to do :-)

Started debt at 17, stopped by 25 :-D ...I'm in debt again because of property :-/

Hmm. This suggests that you do something which causes this. Not on any dodgy football streaming websites are we or using dodgy software you got from some less than legitimate source? On another forum I literally had someone complaining because he bought a computer from PC World with antivirus software on it that did its job on the dodgy footie streaming site he went on and blocked all the malware on it. He was going to take it back because he couldn't watch the football. Reason he got a new computer was the malware had infected his old one so much it was unusable.

No, Tarambor, I don't actually stream anything on it, dodgy or otherwise. The reason the other one kept failing was upgrading from Windows 8.1 to 10, which was a nightmare! Thanks all for your advice. I've changed the power options as EdwardB advised and it hasn't frozen yet, some 12 hours later, so I'm keeping everything crossed... though it can go for 2 days before crashing, so hopefully now it won't!

Just to update you... despite altering the power settings, sadly the PC froze/crashed at 08:56 this morning so it looks like it's back to the drawing board! I noticed there's an option to reset the PC, reinstalling Windows, while keeping the files rather than doing a total factory reset. Does this work and might it be a solution please? I'm still a way from backing up everything on this PC to the cloud and I really don't have the time to reload everything or be computerless at the moment. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks for your post, Andy, which I've only just seen. I put more RAM into the machine (doubling it) shortly after I bought it, as the usage with the preinstalled RAM seemed high and the computer slower, so now have 2 identical sticks. I will dust the connectors and reinstall them, as you suggest and see if this alters anything... fingers crossed and thanks again! There also seems to be no visible pattern with the freezes, it seems to happen at any point and after varying amounts of time.

“

Some good advice above

Complete freezes are usually hardware in my experience.
Especially if you can still see a mouse pointer but it doesn't move ..

Its usually RAM too, so the first and easiest thing I would do is pop the case open, eject your RAM stick(s) and wipe the gold contacts with a dry non linting cloth . Then re-seat them firmly.

If your rig is configured with more than 1 RAM stick then just put 1 back in, see if it freezes, then try with just the other one in - in an attempt to isolate the culprit.

In many cases, simply re-seating them firmly will make the problem go away..

Next I would be looking if there is any pattern to the freezes, ie are you always in the middle of the same thing when the system freezes ??

Thanks for all your responses, which are much appreciated. Just to keep you updated... The computer behaved for a while and I thought that cleaning the RAM connectors had worked. However, over the last week or so, it has frozen repeatedly Guess I'll be removing one of the RAM cards to see if that helps, unless there's anything else I should be trying instead. Will keep you posted...!

I did a reset and kept all data when my 4 month old HP Envy kept freezing. After troubleshooting all the malware routes etc the reset was fine and I was impressed. I guessed it was one of the insidious updates that caused the problem.

How this site works

We think it's important you understand the strengths and limitations of the site. We're a journalistic website and aim to provide the best MoneySaving guides, tips, tools and techniques, but can't guarantee to be perfect, so do note you use the information at your own risk and we can't accept liability if things go wrong.

This info does not constitute financial advice, always do your own research on top to ensure it's right for your specific circumstances and remember we focus on rates not service.

Do note, while we always aim to give you accurate product info at the point of publication, unfortunately price and terms of products and deals can always be changed by the provider afterwards, so double check first.

We don't as a general policy investigate the solvency of companies mentioned (how likely they are to go bust), but there is a risk any company can struggle and it's rarely made public until it's too late (see the Section 75 guide for protection tips).

We often link to other websites, but we can't be responsible for their content.

Always remember anyone can post on the MSE forums, so it can be very different from our opinion.

MoneySavingExpert.com is part of the MoneySupermarket Group, but is entirely editorially independent. Its stance of putting consumers first is protected and enshrined in the legally-binding MSE Editorial Code.